Edgar Allen Poe: The Raven - An Analysis

1. Introduction The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe is one of the most popular poems in literature. I chose this poem because of its tense, atmospheric and stylistic features. In this paper I will try to point out some of the most important features of The Raven.

At first I will give some information about the life and work of the author Edgar Allan Poe and the plot of The Raven which is said to be his best known piece of work. I will analyse the poem by looking at the arrangement of the poem and I will give some background information about the history of the text. In the Concluding remark I will summarize my results by trying to answer the questions if Poe’s life influenced the story that is told in The Raven and why the poem may be so famous.

2. About the Author

Edgar Poe was born on January the nineteenth 1809 in Boston. His parents, David Poe jr. and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins, were touring actors; both died before he was 3 years old, and he was taken into the home of John Allan, a prosperous merchant in Richmond, Virginia, where he was baptized Edgar Allan Poe. His childhood was uneventful, although he studied in England for five years (1815-20). In 1826 he entered the University of Virginia but stayed for only a year. He ran up large gambling debts that is stepfather refused to pay. Therefore he had to leave the college. He broke with Allan and went to Boston, where he published his first book of poems, Tamerlane and other Poems (1827). Because of not having any financial support and the book being unsuccessful, Poe enlisted in the army. In 1829 he left in order to accept an appointment at West Point, as an enlisted man. At this time he had already published Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. After leaving West Point he asked his stepfather for financial assistance but Allan refused. He then moved to Baltimore in 1833 and lived in the home of his aunt Maria Glemm, where he fell in love with his cousin Virginia. His stepfather died one year later. Poe, his aunt, and Virginia moved to Richmond in 1835, and he became editor of the “Southern Literary Messenger”. In the same year he married Virginia, who was only 14 years old at this time. Poe published fiction stories, among these was his most horrifying tale, Berenice but most of his contributions were serious, analytical, and critical reviews that earned him respect as a critic. In January 1837 the issue of the “Messenger” announced Poe's withdrawal as editor but also included the first long prose tale, The Narrative of ArthurGordon Pym, five of his reviews, and two of his poems. Poe had success as a writer but he failed to satisfy his employer. In the following years he changed his jobs and places to live.

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In 1845 Poe's poem, The Raven was published in The Raven and other Poems. Two years later, after his wife had died of tuberculosis, Poe turned more and more to drinking. Edgar Allan Poe died in October of delirium tremens in Baltimore.

3. Analysis

3.1. About the poem

A solitary figure sits alone in his chamber on a stormy night, tormented by the thoughts

of his lost love, the beautiful Lenore. Suddenly, a menacing raven, a bird of ill-omen, flies through an open window and perches itself above the chamber door on the bust of Pallas. The protagonist asks himself aloud which could be the bird’s name and the bird replies with the famous phrase: “Nevermore!” Then the protagonist begins to ask the raven questions about his life and his lost love, which are all answered with the same word, the only word the raven is able to speak. The protagonist thinks of the raven as a prophet. Therefore the negative answers to all his questions destroy all hope for salvation.

3.2. Origin

According to J.R. Hammond The Raven owed its origins to a review of Barnaby Rudge which he [Poe] composed for Graham’s Magazine (February 1841). In the course of this review he commented significantly on the symbolical importance of the raven in a novel

by Charles Dickens 1 , which could have functioned as a model for Poe´s poem. Hammond gives some more interesting information: Poe brooded on the idea of a poem about a raven and its symbolical importance for some years. He finished it in the house in which he had stayed with his aunt and his wife in New York of which furniture a bust of Pallas belonged to. In 1842, when he began to write the poem, his wife was already heavily ill. Poe feared perhaps for Virginia’s life and there is no doubt that this personal experience had a grave influence on the design of the poem. It was published in 1845 published in the “New York Evening Mirror” and its success was instantaneous.

3.3 Development in the Text

There are two developments throughout the poem that are worth a closer look. On the one hand the change of the protagonists state of mind, on the other the growing

1 1 Hammond, J. R. An Edgar Allan Poe Companion: A Guide to the Short Stories, Romances

and Essays. Totowa: Barnes & Noble Books, 1981.

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